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CONTAMINATED MARINE S ED IMENTS - - AS S ES SMENT AND REMED TAT ION
Committee on Contaminated Marine Sediments
Marine Board
Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems
National Research Council
1989
National Academy Press
Washington, D. C.
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing
Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the
National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of
Medicine. The members of the panel responsible for the report were chosen for their
special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to
procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society
of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to
the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon
the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress In 1863, the Academy has a
mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical
matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the
National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is
autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the
National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The
National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting
national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior
achievements of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of
Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences
to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination
of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the
responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to
be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues
of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Samuel 0. Thier is president of the
Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in
1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's
purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in
accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the
principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the
scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both
Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Frank Press and Dr. Robert M. White are
chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
The program described in this report is supported by Cooperative
Agreement No . 14- 12 -0001 - 30416 between the Minerals Management Service
of the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Academy of
Sciences.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Ht~-her 89-62967
International Standard Book No - her 0-309-04095-7
Additional copies of this report: are available from:
National Academy Press
2101 Constitution Avenue, BW
Washington, DC 20418
S029
Printed in the United States of America
F=tPnnang,O~dxr1989
S=x~dPnn~ng,Novam~rl990
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COMMITTEE ON CONTAMINATED MARINE SEDIMENTS
KENNETH S. KAMLET, Chairman, Senior Program Manager, A.T. Kearney,
Inc., Alexandria, Virginia
WILLIAM J. ADAMS, Associate Fellow, Monsanto Company, St. Louis,
Missouri
A. KARIM ARMED, Environ Corp., Princeton, New Jersey
HENRY J. BOKUNIEWICZ, Marine Sciences Research Center, State University
of New York, Stony Brook
THOMAS A. GRIGALUNAS, Department of Resource Economics, University of
Rhode Island, Kingston
JOHN B. HERBICH, Civil Engineering Department, Texas A&M University,
College Station
ROBERT J. HUGGETT, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of
William and Mary, Gloucester Point
HOWARD L. SANDERS, Scientist Emeritus, Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
JAMES M. THORNTON, Department of Ecology, State of Washington, Olympia
S taff
CELIA Y. CHEN, Staff Officer
ANDREA CORELL, Editor
DELPHINE D. GLAZE, Administrative Secretary
. · .
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MARINE _ _
SIDNEY WALLACE, Chairman, Hill, Betts and Nash, Washington, D.C.
BRIAN J. WATT, Vice-Chairman , TECHSAVANT, Inc., Kingston, Texas
ROGER D. ANDERSON, Cox's Wholesale Seafood, Inc., Tampa, Florida
ROBERT G. BEA, NAE, University of California, Berkeley
JAMES M. BROADUS III, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
F. PAT DUNN, Shell Oil Company, Houston, Texas
LARRY L. GENTRY, Lockheed Advanced Marine Systems, Sunnyvale, California
DANA R. KESTER, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island
JUDITH T. KILDOW, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
WARREN LEBACK, Puerto Rico Marine Management, Inc., Elizabeth, New
Jersey
BERNARD LE MEHAUTE, University of Miami, Florida
WILLIAM R. MURDEN, NAE, Murden Marine, Ltd., Alexandria, Virginia
EUGENE K. PENTIMONTI, American President Lines, Ltd., Oakland,
California
JOSEPH D. PORRICELLI, ECO, Inc., Annapolis, Maryland
JERRY R. SCHUBEL, State University of New York, Stony Brook
RICHARD J. SEYMOUR, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla,
California
ROBERT N. STEINER, Atlantic Container Line, New York, New York
EDWARD WENK, JR., NAE, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Staff
CHARLES A. BOOKMAN, Director
DONALD W. PERKINS, Associate Director
CELIA Y. CHEN, Program Officer (through July 1988)
SUSAN GARBINI, Program Officer
ALEXANDER B. STAVE Program Officer
DORIS C. HOLMES, Staff Associate
AURORE BLECK, Administrative Secretary
DELPHINE D. GLAZE, Administrative Secretary
GLORIA B. GREEN, Senior Secretary
CARLA D. MOORE, Senior Secretary
iv
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PREFACE
The problem of contaminated marine sediments has emerged as an
environmental issue of national importance. The pervasive and
widespread nature of the problem has resulted from decades of using
coastal waters intentionally or unintentionally for waste disposal.
Harbor areas in particular have been found to contain high levels of
contaminants in bottom sediments due to wastes from urban, industrial,
and riverine sources, as well as navigation.
Legislative authority for the management of contaminated marine
sediments falls largely under three statutes: the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980
(CERCLA), the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA),
and the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Comprehensive Environmental
Response Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as amended by the
Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) of 1986, is aimed
at the clean-up and remediation of inactive or abandoned hazardous
waste sites, regardless of location. Superfund sites are currently
ranked by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based on the hazard
they may pose to human health and the environment via releases to
~r~r.~+ ~ ~ - As At ^~ m; ~
~~V~W~-G`' =~= We ~11~ Aft- Underwater accumulations of
hazardous wastes in marine environments are unlikely to threaten human
health except by way of food chain exposure, which is not currently
addressed in EPA's hazard-ranking process. Under the 1986 Superfund
amendments, however, EPA was required to modify its Hazard Ranking
System to address " the damage to natural resources which may affect the
human food chain and which is associated with any release (of a
hazardous substance)" (Section 105(a)~2~. It is likely, therefore,
that once this amendment is there will be a s ignif icant increase in the
number of "underwater Superfund sites" in both coastal and inland
areas.
Meanwhile, the Clean Water Act of 197(), as amended by the Water
Quality Act of 1987, gives EPA lead responsibility for safeguarding the
quality of U.S. coastal and inland waters. This includes regulating
the disposal of dredged and fill materials (shared with the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, under Section 404), and removing in-place toxic
pollutants in harbors and navigable waterways (under Section 115~. The
1987 amendments added new authorities requiring EPA to study and
conduct projects relating to the removal of toxic pollutants from Great
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Lakes bottom sediments (Section 118(c)(3)); and to identify and
implement individual control strategies to reduce toxic pollutant
inputs into contaminated waterway segments (Section 304~1~.
In response to Title II of the Marine Protection, Research, and
Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (PL 92-532) and the National Ocean Pollution
Planning Act, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) Office of Marine Pollution Assessment conducts comprehensive
interdisciplinary assessments of the effects of human activities on
estuarine and coastal environments. Among these assessment activities
is the National Status and Trends Program (NST), which attempts to
create, maintain, and assess a long-term record of contaminant
concentrations and biological responses to contamination in the coastal
and estuarine waters of the United States. This assessment provides
some insight into the extent of contamination nationally.
As a result of legislative responsibility and programmatic
interests, a wide variety of federal agencies have shown active
interest in this subject. EPA's responsibilities under Superfund and
the CWA are the source of its interests in water quality concerns and
remediation of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (COE) is involved because of its responsibility to dredge
and maintain navigable rivers and harbors. The COE also assists in the
design and implementation of remedial clean-up actions under
Superfund. NOAA has responsibility for assessing the potential threat
of Superfund sites to coastal marine resources as a natural resource
trustee as well as under its NS&T program. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service has legal authority for various endangered coastal species,
food chain relationships, and habitat considerations, all of which are
potentially impacted by contaminated sediments. The Navy has had
experience in assessing contaminated sediments and now must grapple
with such problems in locating and maintaining homeports for Navy
vessels.
In response to this emerging problem, the National Research Council
convened the Committee on Contaminated Marine Sediments. The members
of the committee were selected for their expertise and to ensure a
spectrum of viewpoints. Their expertise spanned the fields of aquatic
toxicology, dredging technology, resource economics, sediment dynamics
and transport, benthic ecology, environmental law, and public policy.
Biographies of committee members appear in Appendix A. Consistent with
the policy of the National Research Council, the composition of the
committee reflected the competing biases that might accompany expertise
vital to the study in an effort to seek balance and fair treatment of
the subject.
The committee convened a symposium and workshop with invited papers
in order to determine the extent and significance of contaminated
sediments, review the state of practice of technology for clean-up and
remediationm identify and assess alternative management strategies, and
identify research and development needs and issues for subsequent
technical assessment.
The committee agreed that contaminated sediments should not be
defined simply on a generic basis or as those sediments containing some
level of synthetic chemicals or background substances above normal
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concentrations due to human activities. If so, all sediments would be
defined as contaminated. However, for the sake of this report, the
committee believed the following could be used as a working definition:
Contaminated sediments are those that contain chemical
substances at concentrations which pose a known or suspected
environmental or human health threat.
The committee also recognized the importance of issues related to
ultimate sources of contamination and competing uses of the affected
areas; however, these subjects were beyond the scope of this study.
The invited papers of the symposium and workshop focused on the
extent of contamination nationwide, methods for classification of
sediment contamination, risks to human health and the ecosystem,
sediment resuspension and contaminant mobilization, remedial strategies
and technologies for handling contaminated sediments, and lastly, five
case studies of the different ways in which a variety of sediment
contamination problems are being handled. They included the PCB
problem in New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts; PCBs in the upper Hudson
River, New York; kepone contamination of the James River, Virginia; the
variety of chemicals contaminating Commencement Bay, Washington; and
the Navy Homeport Project in Everett Bay, Washington.
The committee met three times, including once after the two and
one-half day symposium and workshop in Tampa, Florida. The symposium
lasted one and a half days, during which presentations of invited
papers were made. The subsequent one-day workshop was composed of two
consecutive work groups. The first one discussed the extent,
classification, and significance of contaminated sediments, and the
resuspension of sediments. The second work group discussed the
selection of management strategies and remedial technologies for
handling contaminated sediments and the case studies exemplifying
marine sediment contamination problems and their remediation.
This report is in part a proceedings of the symposium and
workshop. It contains all of the invited papers and a summary of the
deliberations of the work groups. It also contains a discussion of the
major findings and recommendations of the committee with regard to the
issues covered in the meeting.
The entire report has been reviewed by a group other than the
authors, but only the summary and workshop reports have been subjected
to the report review criteria established by the National Research
Council's Report Review Committee. The papers have been reviewed for
factual correctness.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The committee would like to express its gratitude to a number of
individuals whose assistance has been of great benefit in the
development of this report. The committee thanks each of the invited
speakers whose informative papers were the focus of the symposium and
workshop. A special thanks is also extended to Walter Kovalick, Jr.,
Deputy Director of EPA's Office of Emergency and Remedial Response for
his delivery of a stimulating and informative luncheon address.
Appreciation is also conveyed to the rapporteurs of each work
group, Dr. Michael Palermo of the U.S. Army Engineer Waterways
Experiment Station and Dr. Jack Anderson of the Southern California
Coastal Water Research Project, for their assistance in preparing the
workshop summaries. The committee also thanks all of the workshop
participants (listed in Appendix B) for their participation and
valuable remarks during the workshop discussions.
Finally, the committee extends its thanks to the government liaison
representatives whose participation in the committee meetings, the
symposium and workshop, and contributions to this report were
invaluable: Robert R. Bersson, Naval Facilities Engineering Command;
John Cunningham, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Kim Devonald,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Norman R. Francingues, U.S. Army
Engineer Waterways Experiment Station; David B. Mathis, U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers; Andrew Robertson, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration; John Rogers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and,
Christopher H. Zarba, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
viii
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CONTENTS
Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Findings and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . .
Extent of Contamination, 4
Classification Methodologies, 6
Risks to Human Health and the Ecosystem, 10
Mobilization and Resuspension of Contaminants, 12
Contaminated Sediment Management Strategies, 14
Remedial Technologies, 15
Remediation and Source Control: Economic Considerations, 18
Workshop Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Work Group I--Extent, Classification and Significance of
Contamination, 20
Work Group II--Assessment and Selection of Remedial
Technologies, 28
Case Studies, 34
Presented Papers
Extent of Contamination. . . . . . . . . . . . .
National Perspective on Sediment Quality, 38
Chistopher Zarba
National Status and Trends Program for Marine Environmental
Quality, 47
Andrew Robertson and Thomas P. O'Connor
Classification of Contaminated Sediments . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Use of Apparent Effects Threshold Approach (AET) in Classifying
Contaminated Sediments, 64
Robert Barrick, Harry Belier, Scott Becker, and Thomas Ginn
The Use of the Sediment Quality Triad in Classification of
Sediment Contamination, 78
Edward R. Long
A Review of the Data Supporting the Equilibrium Partitioning
Approach to Establishing Sediment Quality Criteria, 100
Dominic M. Di Toro
ix
. 20
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Marine Sediment Toxicity Tests, 115
Richard C. Swartz
Significance of Contamination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Effects of Contaminated Sediments on Benthic Biota and
Communities, 132
K. John Scott
Sediment Contamination and Marine Ecosystems: Potential
Risks to Human Health, 155
Donald C. Malins
Mobilization and Resuspension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Predicting the Dispersion and Fate of Contaminated Marine
Sediments, 166
Y. Peter Sheng
Computer Simulation of DOT Distribution in Palos Verdes
Shelf Sediments, 178
Bruce E. Logan, Robert G. Arnold, and Alex Steele
Assessment and Selection of Remedial Technologies. . . .
-- Strategies for Disposal of Contaminated
. . . 131
. . . . 199
Management _ O_
Sediments, 200
M. R. Palermo, C. R. Lee, and N. R. Francingues
Alternatives for Control/Treatment of Contaminated Dredged
Material, 221
M. John Cullinane, Jr., Daniel E. Averett, Richard A. Shafer,
James W. Male, Clifford L. Truitt, and Mark R. Bradbury
Developments in Equipment Designed for Handling of Contaminated
Sediments, 239
John B. Herbich
Monitoring the Effectiveness of Capping for Isolating
Contaminated Sediments, 262
Robert W. Morton
Remedial Technologies Used at International Joint Commission
Areas of Concern, 280
Ian Orchard
Economic Considerations of Managing Contaminated Marine
Sediments, 291
Thomas A. Grigalunas and James J. Opaluch
Case Studies ....................
New Bedford Harbor Superfund Project, 312
Allen J. Ikalainen and Douglas C. Allen
Physical Transport Investigations at New Bedford,
Massachusetts, 3S1
Allen M. Teeter
PCB Pollution in the Upper Hudson River, 365
John E. Sanders
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Contamination of the Hudson River--The Sediment Record, 401
Richard F. Bopp and H . James Simpson
Kepone and the James River, 417
Robert J. Huggett
Assessment of Contaminated Sediments in Commencement Bay
(Puget Sound, Washington), 425
Thomas C. Ginn
St. Paul Waterway Remedial Action and Habitat Restoration
Project, 440
Jerry K. Ficklin, Don E. Weitkamp, and Ken S. Weiner
Dredging and Disposal of Contaminated Marine Sediment for the
U.S. Navy Carrier Battlegroup Homeport Project,
Everett, Washington, 462
Edward Lukjanowicz, J. Richard Paris, Paul F
and Gregory L. Hartman
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Biographies of Committee Members
Coastal States Survey, 486
Workshop Participants, 488
Agenda, 491
xi
, 483
.
Fuglevand,
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